1809

Raphael knew by the way his father was downing wine at dinner that this was going to be one of those nights. He should have known better than to come home this week, his father always grew melancholy this time of year and it was becoming increasingly difficult to watch him descend into the pit of grief every time the anniversary of his divorce came around. He would not have come if it had not been for the fact that Thomas was off to war, he had purchased a commission to join the army and he was to leave the next day.

"Don't you think you've had enough?"

"Not nearly enough," his father grinned at him, clearly already three sheets to the wind. Raphael took a breath to brace himself as his father raised a glass. "Salud."

Three full glasses later the Marquess of Lindsey was half drooping into his third course.

"I don't understand why you do this to yourself," Rafael snapped as he rounded the table and helped his father up, "making a spectacle of yourself in front of the servants, year after year. You've secluded yourself from society, how many years has it been since you were in London? Not since I can recall, in any case. If you're so damn lonely, remarry, for God's sake."

His father hiccupped and mumbled a reply as Rafe forced him to his feet and pushed him out the door and up the stairs to his suite. As Rafe entered the room, he saw his father's valet waiting to help him undress. Raphael dismissed him, not wanting yet another witness to his father's disgrace. He forced the Marquess to wash his face with the cold water in his basin and then to drink a glass of water. When he looked marginally more sober, he told him to get into bed and try and sleep his melancholic mood off.

His father settled beneath his covers and stared up at the ceiling.

"I would give anything in this world to hear her call me James again," his father sighed so dejectedly that Raphael felt his own heart twist.

"Why did you do it?"

"Hmm?"

"Divorce her. You had all the power. If seeing her married to another man hurts you this much, why did you do it?"

"Penance, I suppose," his father's smile was rueful and self-deprecating. "You see, son, when you refuse to cherish something infinitely precious, someone else will come along and do it instead."

"I don't understa-"

"We met when we were very young, she was the daughter of an Earl who lived in the property that used to border are lands, here in Carlisle. We had known each other since childhood, and it was always....understood that we would get married. It was never a conscious decision I made but neither can I say that we were forced; but there were expectations from both families. We had always been friends, gotten along well so I didn't particularly mind the prospect of having her as my wife or future Marchioness. When we began formally courting, our feelings for each other changed quickly from friendship to what I now see was love. She was always so loving and affectionate-"

His father fell into a melancholy silence as Raphael tried to reconcile the young woman he was describing and the frigid woman she was whenever she and his father were together. How was it possible for this to go from one extreme to the other?

"Every time we made love, she would hold me so sweetly," to Raphael's horror he heard his father begin to weep. The Marquess traced a finger across his collar, "and she would kiss me right across here, every time. It splayed me open in ways I had no idea how to deal with. It made me vulnerable in ways I hated so fiercely that I wronged her instead of letting her have all of me. People of our ilk rarely ever see our parents love one another, not when so many matches are made for some sort of gain, God knows I never saw my parents together save for when they had to make public appearances. I thought it was strange to be so taken with my wife, a belief that was further reinforced by people whom I called friends. I was young and stupid, one and twenty; just three years older than you are now. They told me the only way to cure myself of this malady was to find another woman who could entertain me. It was, after all, what men like us did. No one would bat an eye at a Viscount taking a mistress. It was not like a wife could do anything about it. It was only much later that I would see that these so-called friends were miserable in their own marriages, but I was not. At least not until I had lost your mother for good."

Raphael sucked in a shocked breath. Of all the things he had theorized about his parent's divorce, he would not have thought of infidelity. Not on his father's part, in any case. His father who always looked at his mother with such overwhelming love and heartbreak that it made Raphael uncomfortable. Even so, infidelity on a man's side was not a cause for divorce, legally. Many people of their circle kept mistresses and lovers, and not one of them divorced for it. The women simply did not have the legal power, nor did they wish to invite the kind of social ruin a divorce entailed.

"The first time I slept with another woman, I was violently ill afterward. It was as if even my body knew that what I had done was wrong. That it was never going to be right with anyone that wasn't her. But I was a man, the heir to a Marquessate, a lord. It was in my blood and upbringing to do what I pleased, and I wanted to prove that she could not control me. That she could not own me. And so I did not stop, even knowing that I hated it inside, knowing that it would hurt her. I did not stop because I thought I was keeping myself safe from that terrifying vulnerability that she roused in me. I think she began to suspect at some point because she withdrew from me little by little. I was thankful for it as much as I loathed it, but it was what I wanted so what reason did I have to hate it?"

His father was silent for a moment but Raphael could see the twinkle of his tears in the low light of the lamp.

"And then came the worst of my transgressions; it was her sister's come-out ball and she had been looking forward to it for weeks. She was so radiant that night, smiling and laughing. I have never in my days seen anything as beautiful as your mother on that night, not even when she was a bride. She had been nervous and shy and half-sick on our wedding day. I arrived late to the ball, entirely intentionally, because heaven forbid that she think that things that mattered to her were important to me, as well. There was this widow there who had been flirting with me for a while, and while I was not altogether too interested in her, I did not discourage her flirtations. She followed me out to a balcony and made an advance that I did nothing to refuse. By the time your mother found us, she had her hands up my shirt and her bodice was half undone."

His father took in a ragged breath before he continued.

"Do you know that it is an actual, physical thing to watch someone lose their love for you? You see it in the way their eyes forget the glitter of affection they reserved only for you. You see it in the way they cloak themselves in a glacier of indifference so that you never have the power to hurt them again. You see it in the way their smile falls away and contempt is etched into every inch of their expression. I saw it then, this distance I had been trying to put between us widen into a chasm that stretched on for an eternity, and I realized a moment too late that I had killed both of us in different ways. I saw her faith in me shatter before my very eyes and I could do nothing to stop it."

"I wish she had yelled at me. I wish she had hit me. But all she did was say Excuse me and then walk away. She has never once called me by my name since that night. That night, when I reached home, I expected her anger, her hurt. I wanted to beg her forgiveness, I was willing to do anything to win her back. I had not counted on her apathy. When I went to see her, it was as if she had shut me out of herself. She told me that she had been warned by her mother to expect something like this. That it was a part of life. She had not expected me to blindside her like this and hence she seemed upset. She asked for me to watch my behavior when her family was around but other than that I was welcome to whomever I wished. I tried to tell her that it was not what I wanted, that I had been so absolutely foolish, that it would never happen again but she just sat there and listened as one might to a child telling tall tales, with half an ear and even less belief. My marriage ended a full two years before we ever divorced."

"At first, I thought to myself that she was rightfully angry and that she would be more open to discussion in a few days, but she remained frigidly polite to me, not even able to fully mask her contempt. But, I had one last hope. There was something I could give her that no other man could, something that she ached for; a child. I waited patiently until she approached me some months later, saying that she would like to have a child. I thought that I finally had a chance. I would win her back, show her that I loved her, that she was the only thing I wanted. The first night I spent in her bed, I told her that I loved her, that I had missed holding her and she finally broke. She wept as if I had violated her, she wept as if the hurt she had managed to keep at bay finally overtook her. I could not bring myself to touch her again after that, nor did she ever invite me to her chamber again. She left the next morning for her brother's property in Somerset. A month later a letter arrived telling me that she was expecting. And then you were born and I loved you from the first moment I held your tiny little body in my hands. No, I loved you from the moment I learned that you were coming into this world. And I think the sincerity of my love for you improved things between us by some margin. She at the very least started tolerating my presence whenever I came to visit you, she even moved closer so that I could see you as frequently as possible. It was around this time, I believe, that she met Brigadier Reynolds."

"About a year after you were born, I remember because we were both concerned that you had not yet started walking, she came to London for the first time since she had left and asked me two things; whether I would grant her a divorce and if I would keep her from you. I wanted to tell her outright that she was mad for asking me for a divorce. That she could not possibly hate me so much as to wish that kind of ruin upon herself but she remained steadfast. I refused her and she left without complaint, but the more the time passed, the more I thought about how much she must have compromised on her self-respect that she would make such a request of me. How much she would have loathed having asked me for anything, which could only mean that there was something, or someone, she loved more than she hated me. So, how could I deny her? And just about a year later, I was no longer a married man. The scandal aside, London lost its luster for me, so I began living here. Your mother and the Brigadier left for Italy when you turned six and were old enough to live with me for half the year without being afraid or fussy. Ah, look at me, prattling on in front of you. I'm certain you didn't need to hear all of that."

"No, I –uh- I appreciate that you told me. I always wondered why, truth be told, and I knew the boys at Eton were full of horse shite. I heard the wildest things and got into my fair share of fistfights. I was angry at the two of you for a long time," Raphael confessed, "they punished me, ostracized me for a decision that the two of you had taken. But now.......now, I just want you to be well. I don't want to see you like this, so alone and hurting even after all these years."

"Ah, I am sorry that the other boys were unkind to you, Raphael. I know you had a hard time in those early years at Eton, but you grew a thick skin and an easy demeanor, both important things for a young man to have. I am sorry it was hard for you because of us, but things will be easier for you in Cambridge, I imagine. You have a good retinue of friends now, don't you?"

Raphael did not comment on how his father had evaded the last part of his speech.

"Yes, I hope so. I have a few friends that will be there so I am not too worried. I should head out now, I promised to see Thomas off before he leaves tomorrow."

"Ah, yes, he bought a commission, didn't he? Brave young man to come to England's defense at her greatest time of need. Wish him good luck and Godspeed from my side. But before you go, Raphael, I want you to promise me something."

"Yes?"

"When you find the person meant for you, do not be afraid of the ways she changes you, accept them as something that will make you different, but different does not mean weak."

Raphael offered him an empty agreement and a soft farewell. His father had no need to know that Raphael had no interest in marriage. Leg shackling himself to one person for the rest of his life? Insanity. The expectations and demands a wife would have for him were simply not conducive to his lifestyle.

Monogamy? Good god. Why would he wish for that when he could have his freedom from the kind of ruin his parents have wrought upon each other?

And love? The very thing that had brought his father to his knees? That had prompted his mother to expose their family to ruin and expulsion from society? No, he wanted no part in that at all.